With Covered California announcing this week that health insurance premiums will jump an average of 12.5 percent next year, and possibly far more depending on actions in Washington, it’s worth repeating that a real cure for Californians, Senate Bill 562, is still achievable this year. —Deborah Burger, Special to The Bee, 08/03/17 More »

Organizers held a "mock duel" outside the office, a reference a controversy last week during which Farenthold, on the 1440 Keys radio show, singled out "some female senators from the Northeast" as part of the reason the Senate had not done away with and replaced the Affordable Care Act. —Chris Ramirez, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 07/31/17 More »

Sylvia Higgins, a registered nurse from Corpus Christi, had the day off work Thursday. So she came to Washington, D.C., to join a mass protest in senators’ offices organized by Indivisible and other groups. —Caroline Kelly, The Dallas Morning News, 07/21/17 More »

On the Cleveland Clinic’s sprawling campus one day last year, the hospital’s brain trust sat in all-white rooms and under soaring ceilings, looking down on a park outside and planning the next expansion of the $8 billion health system. —Dan Diamond, Politico, 07/17/17 More »

A decade after the nation’s top hospitals used all their advertising and lobbying clout to keep their tax-exempt status, pointing to their vast givebacks to their communities, they have seen their revenue soar while cutting back on the very givebacks they were touting, according to a POLITICO analysis. —Dan Diamond, Politico, 07/17/17 More »

Democrats gear up for the 2018 election, they confront big challenges: Polls in the last election showed a general electorate that deeply distrusted the party’s leaders, while new surveys show the Democratic base has lost faith in government — and now many swing voters believe Democrats aim to help the wealthy. —Lydia O’Neal And David Sirota, International Business Times, 07/12/17 More »

IS A SINGLE-PAYER health care system workable in California? My short answer is “yes.” I reached that conclusion by writing a research study, along with co-authors James Heintz, Peter Arno, and Jeannette Wicks-Lim, of the Healthy California single payer bill. —Robert Pollin, Writing for The Intercept, 07/12/17 More »

To some, the California Nurses Association’s political tactics in pushing for a single-payer health system seemed a bit, well, extreme. Others are impressed with the union’s drive and creativity, recalling how in 2005 CNA members taunted California’s then-governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, trailing him wherever he went to protest his attempts to roll back hard-won nurse-to-patient requirements in hospitals. —By Pauline Bartolone, California Healthline, 07/12/17 More »

A circuit judge struck down the city’s minimum wage law on Wednesday just hours before it was set to go into force. Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer issued a sobering blow to the city’s law just after 4:30 p.m., declaring it void and out of step with state law. The city quickly said it would appeal to a higher court. —Nicholas J.C. Pistor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 07/11/17 More »

We had some questions about California’s high-profile bill to establish a single-payer system, in which the state would foot the bill for nearly all healthcare costs of its residents. So we looked into the proposal, asking who would be covered, how it would be paid for and other basic questions about how it would work. —By Melanie Mason, Contact Reporter, LA Times, 06/23/17 More »

Whenever health insurance companies face real political pressure they know it’s best to change the messenger. Their executives and spokespeople clam up and turn to paid surrogates who attack reformers in order to take the public’s eye off the ball: health industry price gouging. —Carmen Balber, Capitol Watchdog, 06/23/17 More »

The California Senate recently voted to pass a bill that would establish a single-payer healthcare system for the entire state. The proposal, called the Healthy California Act, will now be taken up by the state Assembly. —By Robert Pollin, writing for LA Times, 06/21/17 More »

As the U.S. Senate rushes to enact secret legislation that could rip away health coverage for millions, with a bill whose only public version even President Donald Trump branded as “mean,” in California we have an antidote that would protect us all. —By RoseAnn DeMoro writing for East Bay Times, 06/20/17 More »